Examining ships that have made an impact on Naval Warfare and Naval History.

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Hello out there! The purpose of this blog is to spread the word that Naval History is interesting and worth knowing. After searching the net, I couldn't find a single place that dealt solely with the subject of Naval Warfare, so I decided to create one. I will be posting pictures and text of various ships and will then describe what part those ships played in Naval Warfare and Naval History. For anyone interested in these subjects, I hope this will be your new home. Every Tuesday a new ship will be posted and each month I'll have a "Ship of the Month" displayed at the bottom of the blog. Both famous and not-so-famous ships will be highlighted. But what they all have in common is that, in some small way, they made an impact on Naval Warfare and Naval History. I think it's a historical lesson worth reading. I also hope you like what you see and I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks for dropping by.

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This blog was created by Remo. I have been forced to close my "Comments" section due to the enormous amount of spam that is being sent to it. I just can't keep up with it anymore, so I decided to end the comments. People who flood blogs with spam are jerks and should be ashamed of themselves. Anyway, if you want to contact me, e-mail me at Libertyship46@aol.com. On balance, I get less spam via my e-mail account than in the "Comments" section of the blog. So if you want to make a comment, send me an e-mail. Other readers on the blog will not be able to see it, but at least I'll have some contact with the outside world! Thank you.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Figure 2: USS Glennon
(DD-620), date and place unknown. The ship in the center background is probably
the battleship USS Nevada (BB-36)
which would place the photograph in the period just prior to D-Day, 6 June
1944. Courtesy of Fred Weiss and Bill
Fessenden. Click on photograph for larger image.

Figure 3: USS Glennon (DD-620)
in the foreground with another unidentified destroyer in a convoy bound for
France. Photograph taken from US
Destroyer Operations in World War II by Theodore Roscoe. Click on photograph for larger image.

Figure 4: USS
Glennon (DD-620) on 22 October 1942
at the New York Navy Yard, New York. Courtesy
Ed Zajkowski .Click on photograph for larger image.

Figure 5:USS Glennon (DD-620) on 19 October 1943,
place unknown. Photograph from the collection of the Vallejo Naval and Historical
Museum, Vallejo, California. Courtesy of
Darryl Baker. Click on photograph for larger image.

Figure 6: USS Glennon
(DD-620), at right, after her stern was blown off by a mine off Normandy on 8
June 1944. USS Rich (DE-695), a US PT boat, a British motor launch, and
an American Auk class minesweeper are
standing by. Rich soon hit another mine, which also destroyed her stern,
and was then sunk by a third mine. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click
on photograph for larger image.

Named after
US Navy Rear Admiral James H. Glennon (1857-1940), the 1,620-ton USS Glennon (DD-620) was a Gleaves class destroyer and was built by
the Federal Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company at Kearny, New Jersey, and was
commissioned on 8 October 1942. The ship was approximately 348 feet long and 36
feet wide, had a top speed of 35 knots, and had a crew of 270 officers and men.
Glennon was armed with four 5-inch
guns, two 40-mm guns, five 20-mm guns, 10 21-inch torpedo tubes, and depth
charges.

After completing
her shakedown cruise off the coast of New England, Glennon was assigned to escort and protect convoys carrying men and
supplies for the invasion of Italy. From 9 to 15 July 1943, Glennon participated in the invasion of
Sicily. She eventually returned to the United States and steamed into New York
harbor on 3 December 1943. The destroyer then made two round-trip convoy escort
voyages to England and one to Gibraltar. Glennon
arrived in New York from Gibraltar on 22 April 1944 and left on 5 May with a
convoy that arrived at Belfast, Ireland, on 14 May. The ship then joined the
giant naval armada that was gathering for the Allied invasion of Normandy,
France.

Glennon was assigned to “Assault Force U” of
the Western Naval Task Force for the invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944. The
destroyer arrived in the Baie de la Seine, France, on D-Day and after
patrolling the area for German submarines and motor torpedo boats, was ordered
to join the other warships providing gunfire support for the Allied troops on
shore.

The next day,
on 7 June, Glennon steamed off “Utah”
beach at Normandy and fired 430 5-inch shells at enemy shore positions in
support of Allied ground troops moving toward Quineville, France. On 8 June,
the ship, which was under the command of Commander Clifford A. Johnson, was
moving along the Normandy coastfor
another gunfire support mission when at 0830 hours Glennon’s stern struck a mine. The blast destroyed most of the
ship’s stern and the minesweepers USS Staff
(AM-114) and USS Threat (AM-124) arrived
on the scene to sweep the area for additional mines. The destroyer escort USS Rich
(DE-695) also arrived a few minutes later to assist Glennon, but suddenly Rich hit three mines which exploded
within a few minutes of each other. These catastrophic blasts blew off a
50-foot section of Rich’s stern. Rich sank 15 minutes after striking the
mines.

The
minesweeper Staff discovered that she
could not tow Glennon, whose fantail
seemed to be firmly anchored to the ocean bottom by her starboard propeller. Most
of Glennon’s crew was moved on board Staff and those remaining on the
destroyer lightened her stern by pumping fuel forward and jettisoning depth
charges and topside equipment. On 9 June, additional salvage equipment was
gathered on some nearby ships that came to assist Glennon. Approximately 60 officers and men also re-boarded Glennon to assist in the salvage
operation.

But on the
following morning of 10 June, just as Commander Johnson was preparing to resume
salvage efforts on board his ship, a German artillery battery on shore near
Quineville spotted Glennon and began
firing cannon shells at her. A salvo soon hit Glennon amidships and cut off all power. After being hit yet again,
Commander Johnson ordered “Abandon Ship” and the remainder of the crew was
taken off in a landing craft. The battered hulk of USS Glennon remained afloat until 2145 hours on 10 June 1944, at which
point she rolled over and sank. During this whole ordeal, the ship lost 25
crewmen killed and 38 wounded. Glennon
was awarded two battle stars for her service during World War II.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Figure 1:S.S. Henry R. Mallory (American Passenger Ship, 1916). This
is a halftone reproduction of artwork showing the ship prior to her service in
the US Navy. She was USS Henry R. Mallory (ID No. 1280) from 1918 to
1919. This image is one of ten photographs published circa 1918-1919 in a
"Souvenir Folder" of views of and on board USS Henry R. Mallory.
Donation of Dr. Mark Kulikowski, 2005. US Naval History and Heritage Command
Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.

Figure 2:USS Henry R. Mallory (ID No. 1280) at the New York Navy
Yard, 6 September 1918, while painted in pattern camouflage. Official US Navy
Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command.Click on photograph for larger image.

Figure 3:USS Henry R. Mallory (ID No. 1280). Halftone reproduction of a
photograph taken in 1918 or 1919 showing the ship's foredeck, as seen from her
bridge. Note the life rafts on deck and hanging from the rigging, winch,
cargo-handling booms and ventilation cowls. This image is one of ten
photographs published in a "Souvenir Folder" of views of and on board
USS Henry R. Mallory. Donation of Dr. Mark Kulikowski, 2005. US Naval
Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.

Figure 4:USS Henry
R. Mallory (ID No.
1280). Halftone reproduction of a photograph taken in 1918 or 1919, showing the
ship's foremast and "crows' nest" lookout position. This image is one
of ten photographs published in a "Souvenir Folder" of views of and
on board USS Henry R. Mallory. Donation of Dr. Mark Kulikowski, 2005. US
Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.

Figure 5:USS Henry R. Mallory (ID No. 1280). Halftone reproduction of a
photograph taken in 1918 or 1919, showing the ship's after deck house, looking
aft from her amidships’ superstructure. Note the life rafts on deck and hanging
from the rigging, cargo booms and ventilation cowls, with her after port five-inch
gun in the middle distance. This image is one of ten photographs published in a
"Souvenir Folder" of views of and on board USS Henry R. Mallory.
Donation of Dr. Mark Kulikowski, 2005. US Naval Historical Center
Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.

Figure 6: USS Henry R.
Mallory (ID No.1280). Halftone reproduction of a photograph taken in 1918 or 1919,
showing one of the ship's after five-inch guns. Note that the sights are
aligned horizontally, while the gun barrel is elevated. This image is one of
ten photographs published in a "Souvenir Folder" of views of and on
board USS Henry R. Mallory. Donation of Dr. Mark Kulikowski, 2005. US
Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.

Figure 7:USS Henry R. Mallory (ID No. 1280). Halftone reproduction of a
photograph taken in 1918 or 1919, showing the interior of the ship's wheel
house. Note the steering wheel, binnacle and engine order telegraph. This image
is one of ten photographs published in a "Souvenir Folder" of views
of and on board USS Henry R. Mallory. Donation of Dr. Mark Kulikowski,
2005. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger
image.

Figure 8:USS Henry R. Mallory (ID No. 1280). Halftone reproduction of a
photograph taken in 1918 or 1919, showing the ship's officers' mess room ready
for a meal. Note the tiled deck and fluted columns around the exterior of the
room. This image is one of ten photographs published in a "Souvenir
Folder" of views of and on board USS Henry R. Mallory. Donation of
Dr. Mark Kulikowski, 2005. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on
photograph for larger image.

Figure 9: USS Henry R.
Mallory (ID No. 1280) arriving in New York Harbor from France in 1919 with her
decks crowded with homeward bound troops. Photographed by J. W. Allison, 42
West 39th St., New York, New York.Donation
of Robert W. Fisher, February 1974. US Naval History and Heritage Command
Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.

Figure 12:S.S. Henry R. Mallory (American Passenger Steamship, 1916). Halftone
reproduction of a photograph taken while the ship was in port, circa 1942 or
early 1943, while she was serving as a civilian-operated troopship. This ship
served as USS Henry R. Mallory (ID No. 1280) from 1918 to 1919. Copied
from the book Troopships of World War II,
by Roland W. Charles. US Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph.
Click on photograph for larger image.

The
10,910-ton Henry R. Mallory was a
commercial passenger transport that was built in 1916 by the Newport News
Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company at Newport News, Virginia. The ship was owned
and operated by the Mallory Lines and was named after its president, Henry R.
Mallory. The ship was acquired by the US Navy on 13 April 1918 for use as a
troop transport during World War I. The ocean liner was subsequently converted
into a military transport and was commissioned on 17 April 1918 as USS Henry R. Mallory (ID No. 1280).The ship was approximately 440 feet long and
54 feet wide, had a top speed 15 knots, and had a crew of 80 officers and men. Henry R. Mallory could carry almost
2,200 troops and was armed with four 5-inch guns for self-defense.

Soon after
being commissioned, Henry R. Mallory
was used to transport American troops to Europe. The ship brought a total of
9,756 soldiers to France during World War I and once the conflict was over, Henry R. Mallory brought thousands of
troops back to the United States. The ship was decommissioned in mid-September
1919 and transferred to the War Department roughly a month later. Henry R. Mallory was returned to her owners
and resumed service as a civilian ocean liner until the start of World War II.

After the
United States entered World War II, Henry
R. Mallory was once again used as a troop ship. Only this time, the ship
was under US Army direction and had primarily a civilian crew, although the
ship also had a Naval Armed Guard detachment on board. Henry R. Mallory made several voyages to Ireland; Halifax, Nova
Scotia; and Iceland from July 1942 to January 1943.

On 24 January
1943, Henry R. Mallory left New York
City as part of Convoy SC-118, which was headed for England. Although Henry R. Mallory was loaded with troops
and equipment, her final destination was the American base at Iceland. Convoy
SC-118 consisted of 63 merchant ships but was only escorted by eight Allied warships
(three British destroyers, three British corvettes, the Free French corvette Lobelia, and the US Coast Guard Cutter Bibb). SC-118 was a slow-moving convoy
and the German Navy, which had received intelligence reports that the convoy
was headed towards Iceland, sent approximately 21 U-boats to intercept it. The
convoy was at sea for several days before encountering the dreaded “wolf pack”
of German submarines. During the very early morning hours of 4 February, the
fighting began in earnest.

Although
badly outnumbered, the Allied escorts put up a remarkable fight. At least two
U-boats were sunk during the battle and many more were damaged, some severely.
But the plain fact of the matter was that there were too many U-boats and too
few escorts. In addition, U-boat “Ace” Kapitanleutnant Baron Siegfried von
Forstner on board U-402 had just
arrived in the area and was attacking merchant ships almost at will. A wild
melee ensued, with tankers and merchant ships being torpedoed left and right as
escorts pounced on various submarine contacts, whether the U-boats were submerged
or running on the surface. And most of this was happening at night and in bad
winter weather. A few more Allied escorts joined the battle (one of them being
the US Coast Guard cutter Ingham),
but like a school of sharks attacking a vulnerable seal, the U-boats swarmed in
for the kill.

At 0600
Greenwich Time on the morning of 7 February 1943, Henry R. Mallory was for some unknown reason straggling at slow
speed all alone astern of convoy SC-118. She also was not steaming in a zigzag
pattern. Had she been moving in a zigzag pattern, the ship would have been a much
more difficult target for a U-boat to hit. Although at the time she was capable
of doing 14 knots, which was quite fast for a troop ship, Henry R. Mallory was assigned to a slow-moving convoy going at
roughly seven knots, even though she could have gone at high speed to Iceland
on her own and probably avoided all contact with German submarines. So on the
morning of 7 February 1943, Henry R.
Mallory was a big, fat, slow-moving target that was steaming in a straight
line and not taking any precautions by sailing in a zigzag pattern.

All of these
facts were not lost on Siegfried von Forstner on board U-402, which suddenly crept into the area and spotted Henry R. Mallory that fateful morning. By
that time, Forstner’s ship had sunk four merchant vessels during the battle as Henry R. Mallory lumbered into view. He
was surprised that such a large and valuable target was going so slow and not
moving in a zigzag pattern, but he wasn’t about to question his good luck.
There were no Allied escorts in the area, so when U-402 came to within 900 yards of Henry R. Mallory, Forstner fired a single torpedo that hit the
unsuspecting troop ship squarely in the No. 3 hold on the starboard side. U-402 only had three torpedoes left, so
Forstner saw no need in wasting another torpedo on a ship that was clearly
sinking.

Meanwhile,
panic, lack of discipline, and sheer inexperience on board Henry R. Mallory turned a bad situation into a disaster. No general
alarm was sounded after the torpedo hit. Some of the passengers and crew were
jarred from their sleep by the explosion, while others slept through it, being
unable to distinguish the blast from the pounding of the waves hitting the side
of the ship in the rough seas. Many men were trapped in compartments by jammed
doors and steel that was twisted and deformed by the explosion. No commands
came from the bridge after the attack, no emergency flares were fired, no radio
distress calls were sent out, and no orders were given to abandon ship. As Henry R. Mallory slowly sank, individual
lifeboats and rafts were sent over the side, evidently at the initiative of the
men gathered around each lifeboat.

Although the
seas were rough, the lifeboats and rafts should have been able to get away
safely because the ship was sinking so slowly. But the inexperienced wartime
crew simply could not handle the deadly situation. Only five of the nine
undamaged lifeboats managed to get away from the ship. One of these was
partially swamped with water and another was badly overloaded. A third was only
partially loaded and capsized soon after hitting the water. A fourth was
launched with the seacock open, which caused the boat to flood as soon as it
was in the water. Three boats capsized as they were lowered, one of them loaded
with injured men. Another lifeboat got hung up while being lowered and was cut
from the falls, sending it crashing into the water where dozens of men were
swimming.

Only 175 men
got away in the lifeboats. Almost all of the men were inexperienced in
launching the rafts, many of which were frozen to their supports, making them
impossible to pull off. A number of the rafts that were launched were secured
alongside the ship by one-inch thick ropes, but there were no knives or axes to
cut them loose. As a result, when the ship went down, it pulled many of the
rafts down with it, along with the men that were on them. No passengers had been
taught how to lower the floor of the rafts for greater stability and, as a
result, many rafts repeatedly turned over in the heavy seas.

An hour after
being torpedoed, Henry R. Mallory
took a heavy list to port and then went down steeply by the stern. Many
survivors were crowded on the bow and, as it rose higher, men began jumping
into the icy water. After the ship sank, the sea was covered with wreckage,
boats, rafts, swimmers, and bodies. Most of the men died within a few minutes
from exposure to the cold water. Those who were fully clothed lasted a big
longer. But many were so ill-prepared for the sinking that they had little
clothing on and suffered terribly before being frozen to death in the water or
on the wet rafts. The men who were fortunate enough to find one of the few
box-type merchant marine rafts fared better. And most of the few lifeboats that
remained floating were swamped with water while their freezing occupants tried
to bail out the water with their hands. After roughly 30 minutes, the cries of
the men swimming in lifejackets ended and an eerie silence settled over the
darkness and the waves.

Nobody in
convoy SC-118 even knew Henry R. Mallory
had been torpedoed, let alone sunk. By sheer accident, the US Coast Guard
Cutter Bibb stumbled on some of the
survivors in a lifeboat. At approximately 0950 hours, Bibb spotted a red flare in the distance and steamed towards it. At
1000 hours, a lifeboat was sighted and it was loaded with survivors and small
lights were seen scattered over a large area of water. These lights were
probably attached to the life jackets of the dead men floating in the ocean.
Dawn at that far northern latitude was still nearly an hour away. Bibb picked up the first survivors,
discovered that they were from Henry R.
Mallory, and notified the rest of the ships in the convoy. Bibb’s skipper, Commander Roy L. Raney,
USCG, sent out an urgent message requesting help to pick up the survivors that
he now could see were floating all around him. But time was short. Raney knew
that a man could only survive in the icy waters of the North Atlantic for a few
minutes and the longer he waited for permission to pick up all of the
survivors, the more men would die from exposure. But Raney also understood the
risk of a warship stopping to pick up survivors in darkness in an area crawling
with enemy submarines. Bibb ran the
very real risk of being torpedoed while trying to rescue the men that were
dying in the sea.

Soon Raney
received a radio message from the officer in command of the convoy’s escorts,
British naval Commander F. B. Proudfoot, Royal Navy, on board HMS Vanessa. Proudfoot, who evidently did
not want to risk losing one of his few escorts to a submarine attack, ordered Bibb to “Rejoin [the convoy] at best
speed!” When the message was shown to Raney, he reportedly cursed softly under
his breath and then looked out at the water covered with hundreds of American
troops. He felt certain that the escort commander was not aware of the
magnitude of the disaster. So Roy L. Raney crumpled the message in his fist,
stepped out to the wing of the bridge, and told his executive officer to “Stand
down on the next boat. We are going to pick up these men.” Raney well
understood the risk to his own ship, but he continued picking up survivors.
With precious minutes slipping by, Raney intended to rescue as many men as
possible and said he would take full responsibility for his actions.

Moving their
ship carefully among the rafts and lifeboats, Bibb’s crew began a frantic race against time. In the 50-degree
water four hours after Henry R. Mallory
went down, nearly all of the swimmers were dead and many of the men on the
rafts were either dead or dying. Crew members from the Coast Guard cutter went
over the side on cargo nets to help survivors that were too weak to help
themselves. It soon became evident that too much time was being used to get
dying or badly injured men aboard and that these delays would prevent other
uninjured men in the water a chance for survival. When Raney discovered that
two men had died after being brought on board his ship, he ordered that rescue
efforts be concentrated on men who were at least able to pass a line under
their own arms to be hoisted on board the ship. It was a terrible choice to
have to make, but it ended up saving many lives of men who otherwise would have
died.

As more time
passed, fewer and fewer men were found alive. More dead men than live ones were
now being found on board the rafts and the dead were left as they were. By
noon, Bibb was still finding a few
more survivors clinging to wreckage. The US Coast Guard cutter Ingham then arrived on the scene and began
assisting Bibb with rescue
operations. When the search for survivors was finally ended, the results were staggering.
Of the roughly 494 men on board Henry R.
Mallory when she left New York City, Bibb
rescued 205 men, three of whom later died from their wounds. Ingham was able to rescue another 22
men, two of whom later died. Lost among the 272 men who died that horrible
night were the ship’s captain, 48 crewmen, 15 US Naval Armed Guards, and 208
passengers. It was one of the worst Allied troop ship disasters of the war.

Henry R. Mallory didn’t have to sink. Questionable
planning by naval authorities, allowing such a valuable target to straggle
outside the protection of the convoy and steam slowly without moving in a
zigzag pattern, an inadequately trained captain and crew, lack of leadership,
and panic all contributed to the initial disaster. This was made worse by the
fact that, even after being hit, the loss of life need not have been heavy had
the ship been calmly and properly abandoned since there was more than enough
time before the ship actually went down. The only major bright spot in this
whole tragic story was the heroic rescue effort made by Commander Roy L. Raney
and the crew of the USCGC Bibb. Had
it not been for them, the loss of life would have been far worse than it was.

The story of Henry R. Mallory is also an object
lesson of how unprepared we were to fight a major submarine war in early 1943.
We simply did not have enough ocean escorts to protect the vast number of
merchant ships headed for Europe. Being so unprepared for this war cost the
lives of many men, proving once again that the lack of preparedness for
military conflict never ends well.

Please Note: Perhaps the most thorough account of
the battle of convoy SC-118 and the loss of Henry
R. Mallory can be found in the book Bloody
Winter, by Captain John M. Waters, Jr., USCG, and published by the Naval
Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 1984.

Figure 4:USS Snapper (SS-185) off the Mare Island Navy Yard, Vallejo, California, 24
February 1945. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the US National
Archives.Click on photograph
for larger image.

Figure 5:USS Snapper (SS-185) underway off the Mare Island Navy Yard, Vallejo, California,
24 February 1945. Official US Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval
Historical Center. Click on photograph for larger image.

Figure 6:USS Snapper (SS-185) seen from ahead while underway off the Mare Island Navy Yard, Vallejo,
California, 24 February 1945. Official US Navy Photograph, from the
collections of the Naval Historical Center. Click on photograph for larger
image.

Figure 7:USS Snapper (SS-185) seen from astern while underway off the Mare Island Navy Yard,
Vallejo, California, 24 February 1945. Official US Navy Photograph, from the
collections of the Naval Historical Center. Click on photograph for larger
image.

Named after a
bass-like fish, the 1,449-ton USS Snapper
(SS-185) was a Salmon class submarine
built by the Portsmouth Navy Yard at Kittery, Maine, and was commissioned on 15
December 1937. The ship was approximately 308 feet long and 26 feet wide, had a
top speed of 21 knots surfaced and 9 knots submerged, and had a crew of 55
officers and men. Snapper was armed
with one 3-inch gun, two .50-caliber machine guns, two .30-caliber machine
guns, and eight 21-inch torpedo tubes. The submarine carried a total of 24
torpedoes.

On 10 May
1938, Snapper left Portsmouth Navy
Yard and went on her shakedown cruise which took her to Cuba, the Panama Canal
Zone, and Chile. The ship returned to Portsmouth on 15 July. During the next
three years, Snapper patrolled off
Panama, Hawaii, and the west coast of the United States. The ship was
transferred to the Philippines in the fall of 1941 and, after the Japanese
attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on 7 December 1941, Snapper began her first war patrol a few days later. During that
patrol, Snapper stalked the waters
off Hong Kong, the Philippines, and the East Indies, but was unable to locate
any enemy targets.

During March
and April 1942, Snapper left
Fremantle, Australia, for her second patrol which took her back to the East
Indies and then to the Philippines, where she delivered ammunition and
evacuated some personnel. On her return trip to Australia, Snapper towed the disabled submarine USS Searaven (SS-196) back to Fremantle. Snapper remained based in Australia into 1943 and made four more
cruises to the East Indies, the South China Sea, and the Solomon Islands.

While on her
seventh war patrol on 27 August 1943, Snapper
sank the Japanese freighter Tokai Maru
off the coast of Guam, but received only partial credit for the “kill” because
the ship had already been damaged by another submarine. Then on 2 September, Snapper made contact with a convoy of
five Japanese cargo ships that were being escorted by two warships. Snapper must have been spotted because
the cargo ships attempted to “zig-zag” away from the area. At the same time,
the two escorts steamed towards Snapper
head on. The American submarine then fired torpedoes “down-the-throat” at one of
the escorts, the Japanese frigate Mutsure,
which had only entered service two weeks previously. It was a difficult
head-on shot, but at least one torpedo hit Mutsure
and blew her bow completely off. The Japanese warship was soon covered with
flames and sank shortly after that. Snapper
quickly left the area because the other Japanese escort had started a
depth-charge attack. Snapper escaped
but remained in the general vicinity. On 6 September, Snapper intercepted another convoy and fired three torpedoes, but
all of them missed. On 17 September, the ship ended her seventh war patrol and
returned to Pearl Harbor.

During Snapper’s eighth war patrol, the ship
prowled off the coast of Honshu, Japan, from 19 October to 14 December 1943.
While being pounded by heavy seas on 29 November, Snapper sighted a convoy of five ships and two escorts. As she
neared the convoy, Snapper fired
three bow torpedoes and scored two hits that set the cargo ship Kenryu Maru on fire. The cargo ship
quickly settled by the bow and sank.

After
completing an overhaul at Pearl Harbor, Snapper
began her ninth war patrol on 14 March 1944. Snapper cruised the waters around the Bonin Islands and on 24 March
made contact with a convoy of 12 ships. Snapper
fired eight torpedoes at the convoy and scored six hits, but none of the ships
sank. Due to heavy seas, Snapper was
unable to continue the attack. Japanese escorts and bad weather prevented any
further attacks from taking place, so Snapper
left and went to Midway Island to get more food, fuel, and munitions.

Snapper began her tenth war patrol engaged in
lifeguard duties for American pilots and air crews that were shot down near the
Japanese-held island of Truk. On 9 June 1944, while the submarine was
patrolling on the surface, a Japanese plane descended unexpectedly from a
low-lying cloud and attacked the ship. As Snapper
made an emergency crash dive, the plane dropped a bomb which exploded on a main
hatch, instantly killing one crewman and injuring several others, including the
captain. As the submarine continued to dive, machine gun shells from the
attacking plane were heard striking her hull. Snapper escaped and eventually surfaced after the enemy aircraft
left the area. After surfacing, the crew discovered that the ship’s pressure
hull had not been damaged but that the submarine was trailing a heavy oil
slick, which indicated that the fuel oil tank had been punctured. After some
repairs were made, two wounded enlisted men were transferred to USS Bushnell (AS-15) at Majuro Atoll on 13
June, and Snapper continued her
lifeguard duty until returning to Pearl Harbor on 21 July.

On 5
September 1944, Snapper left Pearl
Harbor for her eleventh and final war patrol, which took her once again to the
Bonin Islands. On 1 October, Snapper
attacked two enemy merchant ships escorted by a small patrol craft. The
submarine fired her bow torpedoes at a large merchant ship and then swung
around and fired a shot at the smaller escort vessel. Hits were scored on both
ships resulting in the sinking of the passenger-cargo ship Seian Maru and the coastal minelayer Ajiro. Snapper then
established a lifeguard station off the coast of Iwo Jima on 18 October and
ended her eleventh patrol at Midway Island on 27 October before returning to
Pearl Harbor.

Snapper left Pearl Harbor on 2 November 1944
and steamed to the Mare Island Navy Yard at Vallejo, California, for an
overhaul. The ship completed its overhaul and left Mare Island on 9 March 1945
and arrived at San Diego, California, on 11 March. The submarine was assigned
to local training operations for several months. Snapper transited the Panama Canal on 20 May and arrived at New
London, Connecticut, on 27 May, where she remained until being decommissioned
at Boston, Massachusetts, on 17 November 1945. Snapper was struck from the Navy list on 31 April 1948 and was sold
for scrapping on 18 May of that same year. USS Snapper received six battle stars for her service during World War
II.

Ship of the Month: USS Wandank

The 795-ton USS Wandank (AT-26) was an Algorma class fleet tug that was built by the Ferguson Steel and Iron Company at Buffalo, New York, and was commissioned on 23 March 1920. The ship was approximately 156 feet long and 30 feet wide, had a top speed of 13 knots, and had a crew of 25 officers and men. For roughly 20 years after being commissioned, Wandank worked along America’s east coast, primarily near her base at Norfolk, Virginia. In 1939, she assisted with the rescue and salvage efforts for the submarine USS Squalus (SS-192), which had accidently sunk off Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Wandank then was based at Boston, Massachusetts, in October 1940 and remained there throughout World War II. Her designation was changed to ATO-26 in May of 1944. Wandank was decommissioned in September 1946 and in July 1947 was sold to a commercial firm in New Orleans, Louisiana, which operated her under the name of W.A. Bisso. The tug was scrapped in 1971 after being in service for 51 years. The photograph shows USS Wandank at Boston circa the later 1920s or early 1930s. USS Constitution is on the opposite side of the pier. US Naval Historical Center Photograph.